Yellow
by jngsjng
Summary: Two and a half years after the war, she's drowning faster than he can remember how to breathe. SasuSaku.
1. Let the Flames Begin

**Disclaimer: **No copyright infringement is intended.

_Chapter 1: Let the Flames Begin_

* * *

Sasuke sees the world in numbers.

There are four lamp posts lining the sidewalk in front of his apartment and two lighting the training grounds down the street. Most days are quiet because his three neighbors are all old and kind, but the only company he would ever consider inviting over is a loudmouthed knucklehead he would rather not have inside his home, so he grows used to the silence.

It takes him approximately three hundred and sixty-seven steps to reach Ichiraku Ramen, sometimes less when Naruto is in tow and he wills himself to take longer strides if only to save himself the trouble of listening to the blonde talk. He never waits more than than five minutes to order his usual beef stew; whether out of routine or impatience, he can't really say, but there are always six strips of meat mixed in with the broth and noodles, and he knows this for a fact because he counts each time.

He can't recall the exact date he began to take notice of such things, but he knows how long it's been since. Two years, six months, three weeks, five days. There is no clock in the restaurant, nor is he wearing a watch, but he has memorized the minutes and the seconds down to the very last digit (thirty-one and fifty-seven, respectively). That's when the nightmares started.

But then again, they haven't really stopped.

_There is blood on his hands, so much blood. He washes it off, scrubbing until his fingers are numb and the skin stretched over his knuckles is raw and peeling and red and _bleeding _and when he finally notices the pain, he looks down and realizes that the blood is still there. He tries to remember where it came from, but his mind is a haze and all he can see is a field of bodies, beaten and battered and bloody, so bloody. All he hears is the sound of his labored breathing and his lungs slowly caving in, all he smells is the stench of death and decay. All he feels is the blood on his hands, slowly dripping down from his wrists to his fingertips and finally to the ground, staining the dirt._

_Then comes the realization, the horror—the truth._

_His fault. The blood, the bodies. It's all his fault. He killed them. He's a killer, a murder, and he didn't mean to, but it's his fault and he doesn't even know how it happened or why, _why_? He waits for his punishment, waits for more blood—_his _blood—but nothing happens. Hours pass and he is exhausted but there are no sheep. And so he counts the bodies._

_There are dozens. And then there are fifty. Seventy-two. Eighty-five. Ninety-six. He wonders if he'll end up the hundredth, and for a moment he contemplates doing the job himself._

That is his last thought before he stirs and finally wakes from his slumber. Sunlight drifts through the blinds and filters through the room, causing his vision to blur. His face is wet, he realizes. For a second he thinks morbidly that he might be covered in blood once again, but as he swipes the back of his hand over his eyes, he is surprised to find crystal clear tears. He blinks once, twice, and a third time. Minutes pass, maybe an hour. He is wide awake now, but he still feels tired, so tired. And so the fourth time he blinks, he keeps his eyes closed, and he dreams once more of the blood and the bodies.

Ninety-seven. Ninety-eight. Ninety-nine. He wonders again who the hundredth will be when all of a sudden he catches a glimpse of green; before he can tell what it is, he realizes there are petals scattered at his feet. And then there is only red.

One hundred.

He lays flat on his back, breathing hard as though he had been sprinting on one of his missions as he presses his hands over his eyes. They burn beneath his fingertips, which is not an unfamiliar sensation, but the throbbing intensifies and he swears he has never felt this much pain.

_Prunnus serrulata_, a voice whispers to him.

Sasuke screams.

* * *

"Isn't your birthday coming up?" Naruto asks through a mouthful of noodles.

It's Tuesday afternoon and as of that morning the stack of paperwork on his desk has gone down from over three feet to a little under three inches. Naturally, this means inviting Sasuke, who had just returned from a nearly month long expedition the day before, out for a well-deserved lunch break at Ichiraku and avoiding as many responsibilities as he possibly can without being gutted by his advisor. There are only five or six other people in the restaurant, which gives them privacy that is seemingly hard to come by these days for the Uchiha heir and Hokage himself. Naruto wants to make the most of it.

Sasuke, unfortunately, does not.

"I guess," he says, and he would have left it at that, but he can practically hear Naruto's glare. "It's in July. I don't remember the exact date." He pauses before adding, "Not that it matters."

Naruto raises a brow until it disappears into a mess of blonde hair. He slurps up another bundle of noodles before accusingly pointing his chopsticks at his longtime friend. "How do you forget your own—" he stops and shakes his head. "Nevermind. More importantly, how can you say it doesn't matter?"

"It used to matter a long time ago," Sasuke clarifies. He has finished eating and is absentmindedly twirling around the straw in his glass of water.

"I'll get you a present," Naruto tells him, his blue eyes sparkling despite the murky, yellow-tinted lighting in the restaurant. "Like, what, a mission or something? And Hinata can bake you a cake."

"You're an idiot."

"Yeah, okay, see if you get a cake now."

"Birthdays are stupid," Sasuke states dismissively, resting his chin on the palm of his hand. "What's the point? We're all going to die, anyway."

"That's kind of morbid, even for you," Naruto hums thoughtfully. "It's a good thing I don't care what you say. We're celebrating your birthday. Hokage's orders."

Sasuke frowns. "You know you can't keep using that, right?"

The blonde merely grins at him before sliding off his stool. "Put it on my tab, Teuchi!" Naruto exclaims, waving at the owner in the kitchen, who gives him a thumbs up in return. He turns back to Sasuke.

"You're free for a couple of hours, but I need you to stop by the tower later so we can discuss your latest mission report. I just went over it again this morning—what? Okay, fine, _Shikamaru_ went over it—"

A shrill scream outside of the restaurant halts his speech.

Naruto whirls around in surprise, and Sasuke tenses, his pupils immediately bleeding red. The room grows silent as all conversation stops, words being replaced with nervous glances at the two nin inching towards the exit. Suddenly, another scream is heard, followed by the thick smell of melted paint and scorched wood. Naruto doesn't waste any more time and shoves past the curtains separating them from the street, Sasuke right beside him.

* * *

They arrive at the scene in two and a half seconds, ready for a fight, an ambush, an attack of some sort, but what they stumble upon is nothing they could have prepared for. Naruto looks on in horror, while Sasuke stands frozen on the spot.

All he sees is red. So much _red_.

_Where is the blood?_

The air is heavy and tinted gray with specks of orange flickering dangerously around them. He counts nineteen people scrambling out of the surrounding buildings, covering their faces to avoid breathing in the toxic fumes as smoke pollutes the area. Twenty. Twenty-four. Twenty-seven civilians, all struggling to breathe, grappling to move away from the conflagration. It becomes difficult to tell who is who anymore, but he recognizes two nin—both Jounin, by the looks of it—attempting water-style jutsus to keep the blaze contained. Another—a blonde—is helping an elderly woman escape from a second story window. Then he blinks, and all of a sudden the number of blondes have multiplied to exactly forty-seven. With a jolt, he realizes that Naruto and his shadow clones have sprung into action.

_Where are the bodies?_

Sasuke shakes out of his stupor and leaps onto the rooftop of the nearest building, working quickly to evacuate its tenants. He does the same thing with the apartment behind it, and the one after that. _Where is the blood?_ He tries not to think about how each building collapses as soon as he moves onto the next. _Where are the bodies?_ Soon enough the only ones to remain in the area are he, Naruto, and the twelve shinobi who have arrived for backup. Leading the pack is a familiar silver-haired nin bearing an uncanny resemblance to a fierce white shark. Water is spilling from all directions, but the fire only seems to be growing more powerful by the second.

"What the hell?" Naruto shouts from a few feet away. "Why isn't it going out, Suigetsu?"

"We've got a dozen water release users here with their best techniques," Suigetsu clamors, brows meeting at the center of his creased forehead. Sasuke hears the exasperation in his voice and involuntarily tenses even more. Suigetsu never panics. "But this fucking fire is turning water serpents into fucking steam! It's not normal!"

Naruto appears beside him in an instant. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means we need more than just water to put it out," Sasuke says, joining them on the ground. "You know any earth style?"

Before either one can open their mouth to reply, someone interrupts.

"You can't_."_

Sasuke stiffens.

He doesn't understand why. The voice is not unfriendly, but the familiarity of it makes him uncomfortable, simply because he can't recall being familiar with it in the first place. It almost feels like a childhood memory of sorts, one that he had not thought of for many years, only for it to have been suddenly dug up from the grave. He tries not to dwell too much on it, especially with the increasingly dangerous situation at hand, but he can't shake the feeling—whatever it is—in the pit of his stomach.

"What are you doing here?" Naruto asks, concern seeping through his tone. "And what do you mean? Water obviously isn't working, and if we don't do something about this fire soon, it'll spread to other parts of the village!"

"I know," the person snaps back. Sasuke feels nauseous. He doesn't bother turning around. "But you _can't_!"

"We have to!"

"Not while _Ino_ is still in there!"

It falls silent.

"Well, shit," Suigetsu mutters.

Sasuke hears Naruto groan, followed by a string of profanities mumbled under his breath. For a moment, Sasuke feels irritation prickling under his skin at this stranger barging in out of nowhere, providing little help and only giving them more things to worry about. He doesn't like being caught off guard, and more than that, he absolutely hates other people slowing him down; _she_ has managed to do both in the span of a minute.

"How do you know she's in there?" Sasuke retorts, finally spinning on his heel to face the new arrival. Onyx eyes, darker than even the blackest shadows, meet a striking emerald green, and his breath almost catches in his throat. _Where is the blood? _Average height, average build, but with those eyes and a head full of unusually pink hair, he wonders—

_Where are the bodies?_

"She's working today," the woman in front of him explains, averting her gaze the second their eyes meet. Sasuke is almost grateful. He probably wouldn't have lasted looking at them any longer. "At the flower shop. Her shift started two hours ago, which means she was in there when the fire started."

"And you don't think she could've gotten out herself?" Suigetsu asks.

"You just said this isn't a normal fire," she reminds him. "Maybe if she just had herself to worry about," there is a split-second pause. "But she doesn't."

The implication hits them fast and hard and this time there is no time for silence.

"_Shit_," Suigetsu repeats simultaneously with Naruto, who runs a hand through his messy hair in frustration.

"We have to get them out," Naruto declares. He turns to the pink haired woman, dressed in a lab coat and—ninja sandals?—lips pressed together in a taught line. "Think Shizune can handle the hospital for a while longer? We'll definitely need you here."

The woman nods. "Yeah, of course."

_She's a medic?_

"I'll go," Suigetsu volunteers. "I have the best chance of getting us in and out of there without getting baked."

"Sasuke is faster, isn't he?" the woman says, and the man in question feels his stomach drop once again.

_How does she know that?_

"Both of you go," Naruto says. He clasps a hand onto Sasuke's shoulder. "It'll help to have someone there to watch your back. I'll work on keeping everyone else away and Sakura-chan will be here _if_ anything goes wrong."

_Sakura_…_?_

Sasuke dismisses the thought. He turns to Suigetsu, and the two nod once before turning toward the growing inferno. At the center of all the chaos is the Yamanaka flower shop, still covered entirely in a sea of flames.

_Prunnus serrulata—a__n enduring metaphor for the ephemeral nature of life._

They dive in.

* * *

**chapter one end.**


	2. At the Crack of Dawn

**Disclaimer: **No copyright infringement is intended.

_Chapter 2: At the Crack of Dawn_

* * *

Sakura stares at the numbers in horror. Hastily, she steps down and watches with bated breath as they dwindle to zero before placing her weight back onto the short platform. The result is the same; it doesn't make any noise, but the silence is deafening to her ears. Seven, it whispers. _Seven_. In spite of all her hard work—punching through stone until her fists are blue and black and bleeding but not broken (begrudgingly she admits her hands are too important), bites of an apple for breakfast and lunch and dinner and breakfast again the next day (the same apple, slowly rotting to its core like she is), and those damn pills (an extreme appetite suppressant three times more effective than soldier pills—her own secret, brilliant, pitiful creation)—she still manages to gain _seven pounds_.

"That's impossible," Sakura hisses. "Seven—"

And then she stops. Because it's a number that has haunted her for years, a number that defines her achievements and her failures and her very being, a number that still hovers even in her most private moments, taunting her as she stands naked in a bathroom equally bare aside from a fraying green toothbrush on the sink and the scale beneath her feet. She feels dirty, _filthy_, because this number that had once given her everything is now sucking her dry, and as she reaches into her medicine cabinet, all she can think about is how revolting it tastes in her mouth. Or maybe it's just the pills. She wonders briefly what would happen if she swallows seven of them at once.

"Sakura? Are you alright in there?"

It takes a second for her to register the muffled voice coming from the opposite side of the door behind her. Sakura forces a smile to her face. _Fake it 'til you break it._ She steps off the scale again before picking it up with trembling fingers, stowing it safely away underneath the sink, but then she realizes that she isn't wearing anything and resists the urge to send her fist flying at the wall.

_Stupid. You're so stupid._

"Yeah, just got out of the shower," Sakura calls out. _Don't let her see. She'll know. Her eyes are made for that._ "Do you mind waiting out in the living room? I forgot to grab my clothes—"

"Oh, it's fine," comes the reply. "I'll bring them to you."

Sakura feels something thump painfully against her ribcage. It's weighing her down, she realizes belatedly, because the protest at the tip of her tongue does not escape and by the time she remembers to open the door, a pair of underwear and a red dress much too small for someone of her stature suddenly appear in her line of sight.

"Here," the same voice murmurs softly, carefully. The hands holding them, milky but not without their fair share of callouses, are patient and don't waver though it takes her a full minute to retrieve the garments.

_Slow, you're so slow, and now it's too late. She knows. She knows. She knows. Fix it. Fix it right now._

"… Hinata?"

"Yes?"

"Can you find another dress for me?" she forces a laugh this time. "This one must have shrunken in the wash. I can barely slip my arms through." The response is delayed, but then she hears a quiet sigh of relief and Sakura decides that she is doing the right thing.

"Of course," Hinata says. "Hold on. I'll only be a moment."

Sakura lets out a breath at the sound of footsteps, but her eyes remain glued to the mirror where her reflection is staring back at her. The red dress hangs loosely on her body.

She rips it off.

_Too close. That was too close._

* * *

"Is that all you're having?" Hinata asks, gesturing to the steaming cup of black coffee across from her.

There is nothing accusing about her tone, but after the incident earlier that morning, the pinkette instinctively stiffens. Despite every nerve in her body telling her to flee—it's a situation that calls for a fight or flight reaction, and between the two, she knows could never so much as raise her voice at her friend—she merely nods. The pills are doing their job so she technically wouldn't be lying if she says she isn't hungry, but the guilt gnawing away at her insides makes it difficult to do even that.

"I'll eat later," Sakura promises. _Another few bites of the poison apple for dinner._ "What about you? Are you sure you don't want anything else? It's my treat, after all."

Hinata smiles and shakes her head. "Thank you, Sakura, I'm alright." The unspoken question lingers in the air as Hinata, with her precious eyes, glance at the dark circles beneath her own. _Are you?_

"I've been so busy at the hospital," Sakura tells her, letting out an exaggerated groan. She hates small talk, but it makes a good distraction. These days she's made it a habit to humor herself and her companions with vapid anecdotes from her week to avoid talking about anything of actual significance. Her fingers drum against the table, creating an inconsistent beat as she continues to stir her coffee with her free hand. "Things have been a lot more lively with Ino and Sai around."

Hinata's eyes sparkle. _Good._ "Oh, that's right! How is she doing?"

"Well, you know how she is," Sakura says, forcing a grin to her face. "Annoying as ever, but I know she's just excited. They both are."

"That's wonderful."

"And you?" Sakura asks. The topic they're on isn't quite as trifling as work or the weather, but considering she's about to ask a question she already knows the answer to, she can't help but think that perhaps there's not much of a difference after all. "Thinking about trying it anytime soon?"

Hinata blushes. It's a healthy flush, much prettier than the pink of her own stringy hair, Sakura observes. "We have. _Are._ Trying, I mean."

_I know._ Sakura bites back the answer and instead keeps the strained smile on her face. She doesn't have to be a medic to realize that it would have only been a matter of time anyway, and she is, for once, completely honest when she says she can think of no two better, more deserving people to be blessed with such a miracle. A bashful and beautiful and brave miracle, she assumes. Maybe even blonde.

_Is it really that special, though?_

Sakura can taste the words on her tongue and finds that it is just as bitter as the numbers. It's been a long time since she thought about the idea of a family, at least pertaining to herself. Her parents are hardly parents anymore—she isn't lying about being busy, though that's something entirely her fault, something that's not about to change any time soon—but it's not like she needs anyone to take care of her. With her parents out of the picture and her being an only child, she doesn't have much of a choice _but_ to be capable.

_Can I… someday…?_

She begins to stir her coffee the opposite direction, watching idly as some of it spills out of the cup. It won't work. It will never work. Not with her. All of a sudden, as if to torture her some more, an image flashes through her mind. It's fleeting, but the glimpse of a round stomach—_her_ round stomach—is immediately branded into her memory.

_No. No. I could never. How much would I gain? Definitely more than seven pounds. Maybe I should go for a run later. Haven't done cardio in a while. I knew I shouldn't have eaten the dango yesterday. Is that why I can't keep up? I'm always falling behind them, but I've been on par with Ino since we were kids. Why can't I keep up now? Why do I want to… I want…_

"Sakura? _Sakura_—"

"Hmm?"

"Please stop!"

Sakura looks down at her cup. It's nearly empty. Her eyes flicker to the dark haired girl sitting across from her and it is only when she notices the look of concern on her face does she feel the hot liquid dripping from her shorts and down her legs. She glances back down at the table and then to her feet where a shallow puddle has formed. Morbidly, she wonders if this is what it would feel like to lie in a pool of her own blood.

"I'm such a klutz," Sakura smiles tightly, reaching over for some napkins. "Sorry about that, Hinata."

Her friend says her name again, a tone of urgency seeping through her usually meek voice, and Sakura's feigned smile falters the slightest. "That was hot coffee."

"It certainly was."

"Sakura," Hinata says, quietly but firmly.

Sakura pointedly keeps her gaze away, unnerved. She doesn't want anyone to see her, but those eyes can see _everything_. "Mild burns," she relents finally. "I'll clean myself up, but they're not worth wasting chakra over. I'm fine."

_I'm fine._

_I'm fine._

_I'm fine._

"Okay," Hinata murmurs.

Sakura fishes out a few bills from her pocket, luckily untouched by the spilt coffee. She places them on a dry spot on the table and moves to stand, her chair scraping uncomfortably against the pavement. "Sorry to cut this short, Hinata," she says. "But I've gotta run."

And so she does.

Two miles. Three miles. Four. Five. Running until her clothes are dry, until she there is no one left to _see_ her, until she is back in her bathroom naked and with another pill in her hand. After she swallows it, her hands fly to her stomach.

It's empty, Sakura reminds herself, and she smiles with tears in her eyes.

* * *

Two months after the war, she finds herself sitting at a booth in some restaurant with her best friend of almost two decades talking about their love lives. Ino tells her to play hard to get. Instead the words _I love you_ come tumbling out of her lips just days later, not for the first time, but for the first time against his. A day or two after her umpteenth confession, he asks her a question that knocks the wind out of her lungs. The skies are pitch black and her eyes are closed, but he knows she's awake, because although his eyes can't see everything, they can see enough.

_Why do you love me?_

He stays for an answer and somehow that means more to her than hearing him say the words in return.

Two months after that they are strangers again, perhaps even more so than before, more so than they ever have been, but she can't blame him—not for this—so she blames herself. That is the catalyst that sends her spiraling. And it is only the lingering feeling of him lying beside her the morning after she tells him about her hopes and dreams and how they all lead back to him that keeps her sane.

For now.

* * *

**chapter two end.**

unedited and therefore subject to changes but i had to post it bc this story is definitely writing itself oh god what happened to ino in that fire!


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